John Schwepe [1935-2014]; Computer manager a devout Lutheran

8/20/2014

FINDLAY — John Schwepe, a retired manager of computer services at Marathon Oil and a devout Lutheran who was a volunteer leader in his congregation and synod, died Saturday in Bridge Hospice Care Center, Findlay. He was 79.

He suffered from dementia, diagnosed in 2009, his wife, Linda, said, and kidney failure.

He worked at Marathon for 32 years, retiring in 1992. He was manager of computer operations in Findlay and manager of operations software in Findlay and Houston data centers.

He graduated from Miami-Jacobs College in Dayton after Army service in Japan. Marathon hired him for the computer room “when computers were just starting,” his wife said. “He got in on the bottom and worked his way up.”

A leader in professional groups, he was a former chairman of the American Petroleum Institute’s computer reliability committee.

Mr. Schwepe was a former council president of First Lutheran Church in Findlay, where he was a member for 35 years. He was a delegate to the assembly of what was then the Lutheran Church in America. He served on several boards for the Northwestern Oho Synod of what is now the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and was an ELCA assembly delegate in 2003 and 2007.

As a member of the candidacy committee, which works with those pursuing a ministry, he brought earnestness “and a sense of humor and grace,” said Bishop Marcus Lohrmann of the Northwestern Ohio Synod. “He was a person who who took his faith seriously and worked at embodying it in his own life and the way he served the church.”

He and his wife joined Trinity Lutheran Church, Arcadia, in 1995.

He was born Feb. 25, 1935, in St. Marys, Ohio, and was a 1953 graduate of Versailles High School, where he played basketball and football.

Surviving are his wife, Linda Schwepe, whom he married Oct. 8, 1960; son, Gregory; daughter, Amy Cashman, and four grandchildren.

Visitation will be from 2-4 and 6-8 p.m. today in Kirkpatrick-Behnke Funeral Home, Findlay. Services will be at 11 a.m. Thursday in Trinity Lutheran Church, Arcadia, where visitation is to start at 10 a.m.

The family suggests tributes to Trinity Lutheran or the Alzheimer’s Association, Northwest Ohio Chapter, in Toledo.

Contact Mark Zaborney at: mzaborney@theblade.com or 419-724-6182.